


Watch Me Stumble (Over and Over)

by emocezi



Category: The Expendables
Genre: AU, Neighbours, Trope fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-19 06:41:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emocezi/pseuds/emocezi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yin has lived in the cul-de-sac for eight years and six months when the house next door is finally purchased.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watch Me Stumble (Over and Over)

Yin has lived in the cul-de-sac for eight years and six months when the house next door is finally purchased. 

There are three other families that live in the cul-de-sac. The children have long since left for college and to start their own families. The cul-de-sac is full of lonely housewives and their husbands. Two of the three men have recently picked up muscle cars, and the last is cheating on his wife with a woman young enough to be his daughter.

Yin has a standing lunch date with Sarah Strauss once a week, and every Thursday evening he holds a book club meeting. It used to just be him, Sarah, Evelynne and Angie, but last month each of the women had brought a friend, and his quiet Thursday evenings were starting to look a bit more rowdy. 

Yin enjoys structure in his life, but the introduction of spontaneity that last Thursday had brought hadn’t been unwelcome. He can handle chaos once a week for two and a half hours. 

It’s a Monday when his new neighbours move in. The moving truck pulls up outside at exactly nine forty five when Yin is outside trimming the hedge that separates his yard from Sarah’s. She has yoga every Monday morning from nine to ten thirty, and Yin likes to surprise her by having the yard work tidy. 

He takes a moment to take in his new neighbours, and he’s surprised when a young boy, no older than eight, tumbles from the cab of the truck and runs crazy circles on the lawn. His father, Yin can see the family resemblance from here, looks to be six and a half feet tall, pauses in the midst of unlocking the back door of the truck and watches his son.

Yin thinks he has a beautiful smile. He frowns to himself and goes back to clipping the hedges. If he ends up snipping off branches with more prejudice than they deserve, no one has to know but him.

Yin is retired. He’s been retired for more than ten years. He tells Sarah he worked for the army, a filing clerk, very boring job. He says it with a smile and it always makes her titter and slap at his shoulder.

For twenty years, Yin worked a job that doesn’t officially exist. He retired druglords, toppled governments and kept the world safe from the real monsters. He’s been shot, stabbed, strangled and broken nearly every bone in his body. Twice.

It doesn’t bother him that he can’t admit to anything. He enjoys living a quiet life. The exact routine of it all keeps him calm.

Right now he feels like his routine has been shattered. He can’t explain why, he doesn’t want to think about his neighbour, or the way his face lit up when he smiled. His biceps, the muscles in his back flexing and bunching when he picks up boxes and-

Yin scowls and slaps a lid on that particular line of thought. He knows what he is, he isn’t ashamed by it. He doesn’t try to hide it, or pretend to be anything else. He’s gay, and he’s fine with that.

What he isn’t okay with, is this goddamn giant strutting up into the neighbourhood and making his libido sit up and take notice. When he wants sex, he goes out to tasteful bars and lets himself get picked up by young men with sly smiles and laughing eyes. He never brings them home, his house is his refuge, and he isn’t about to let anyone jeopardize it for a single night of substandard passion.

He needs to get this out of his system. His drug of choice, since tying the man down and fucking himself stupid isn’t an option, is baking. He started after a series of bad nights, forty eight hours of no sleep had lead to a cooking channel marathon and an episode of _Sugar_ had send him into a fit of weeping, screaming and hurling the remote at the television. 

And after, he’d gone into the kitchen to recreate the brownies Anna Olsen had raved about. They’d come out tacky and burnt and he’d thrown them out. And then made another batch, and another, and another until they came out as perfect as they’d been on tv. And after he’d perfected the art of the brownie, he’d fallen into bed and slept dreamlessly.

He goes into the kitchen, gathers ingredients and bakes with a viciousness normally reserved for battle. In the end he has three pans of brownies, six dozen chocolate chip cookies, a peach rhubarb pie and a six oatmeal and carrot muffins for breakfast. 

He feels drained, and when he sleeps, it’s dreamless.

XxX XxX

The boy, Yin discovers early the next morning, goes by the name of Jacob. He’ll be nine in nine months, he likes cats and dogs but if he could he’d own a dinosaur(a dilophosaurus, they spit acid and look really cool) , the tooth fairy visited him last month(see his missing tooth?), and he’s excited about living in a new house right next door to Yin.

He’d come home from his five mile run, nearly tripping over the boy when he’d leapt from the bushes, making loud growling sounds that Yin supposes were meant to be dinosaur noises. The boy yammers on and on, talking non stop in the way that children do. He walks with Yin right up to his front door and wishes him a good day, before racing back to his own yard, spinning circles in the grass until he falls over.

Yin watches him, finds himself smiling, and decides that maybe children aren’t so bad. He’s never had much contact in the way of children, most of it had been the sad-eyed orphans that lived in the slums. Skittish and half-feral, aged beyond their years. Jake is a refreshing change, a burst of sunshine on a cloudy day.

Nearly every morning after their first meeting, Jake waits by the end of the block for Yin to finish his run. And for five minutes, while he walks Yin back to his door, he talks about his day. What colour of crayon is his new favourite, which cartoons are for babies, the horrible oatmeal he had to eat this morning. 

Yin nods solemnly through the entire exchange, his hands clasped behind his back as he walks. He doesn’t think what it may look like to a stranger, the older man becoming suddenly friendly with a child. He doesn’t worry about how the situation might present itself to a parent. He’s never done anything untoward to Jake, never made an inappropriate gesture or suggestion. 

Which is why he’s so caught off guard when he goes to answer door that evening and finds his neighbour on his doorstep. He takes a step back to keep from straining his neck and stares at the man. His stomach tightens and his palms start to sweat and he reacts instinctively, as if there’s a threat.

“What?” 

“Stay away, from my son.” The giant growls and Yin blinks at him. 

“You’re son?” Yin asks. “Jake?” Apparently it’s the wrong thing to do, and the giant lunges for him. Yin slides back, stopping an inch from the hall table. He knows the location of every piece of furniture, a necessity in the event of a midnight visit from a wetwork team. He’s heard stories. 

“Stay away from him.” The giant growls again, cracking his knuckles in what he probably assumes is a menacing gesture. Yin knows how to kill him fifty seven different ways with his bare hands.

“I have not approached your son.” Yin snaps, wondering exactly what has brought this on.

“You fucking walk him up the street every morning and you got the balls to tell me you haven’t approached him?” Yin stares, trying to process the idea that walking down a street, in broad daylight, with a child, could give this man the sort of ideas Yin has killed other men for acting on.

“You think I...” He bites off the words, can’t voice them. "I would never lay my hands on a child. Get. Out. Of, My. House.” Yin snarls, bodily shoving the giant out of the house and slamming the door behind him. He’s so angry he’s shaking, unwanted memories pouring out until he’s crouched in the corner, head buried in his hands.

XxX XxX

Yin skips his run the next morning, laying in bed and watching the sun rise and wondering why he lived while they died. They had families, wives and children. He has nothing. He has an empty house, an empty life. It’s all so unfair.

He stays in bed the entire day, hating himself for it.

XxX XxX

Jake doesn’t walk with him anymore. It’s something that shouldn’t matter, but after three days of coming back from his run to an empty house, he pauses in the middle of buttering toast and looks blindly at his hands.

He looks around at his house. Every inch of it immaculate. Tasteful art on the walls, plush white leather couches, crystal glasses for entertaining. He picks up the plate and hurls it against the wall, the smash of porcelain is satisfying and he moves from room to room, destroying everything he owns.

This is what he does. He breaks things down. He ruins them. Everything he touches turns to ash, why should this be anything different? 

The doorbell rings and he freezes in the act of plunging a knife into his leather sofa. He glances around his house, at the carnage that surrounds him. He drops the knife on the floor, sits on the pristine sofa and starts to laugh. The doorbell rings again and he sighs and gets up to see which one of the woman needs to borrow a cup of sugar.

Its the blonde giant again, and this time he looks repentant. Yin watches him carefully, face a blank mask free of emotion.

“Uh...hi. We may have gotten off on the wrong...foot.” 

“Yes.” Yin’s voice is icy and the giant twitches, fidgeting his fingers together as if he’s a child himself.

“I wanted to apologize for implying that you...well, you know.”

“Apology accepted. Go away.” He goes to shut the door and the giant slaps his hand on it, pushing it open effortlessly. Yin narrows his eyes.

“No, look. I talked to Sarah about what happened and she yelled at me.” He looks ashamed and Yin feels a perverse sense of joy. “So, I’m sorry. Jesus, what happened to your place?” The giant pushes past him and moves into the living room, surprisingly graceful for someone his size. “Someone break in?”

“I’m....redecorating.” Yin decides, his voice as stiff as his body. The giant turns to look at him, an eyebrow raised.

“Redecorating?”

“The house is not...” He scrambles for something to say and ends up blurting out the first idiotic thing he can think of, internally wincing as soon as it leaves his mouth. “Feng Shui.”

“So you trashed it?”

“Yes.”

“Is that an Asian thing?”

“Yes.”

“You sure don’t talk much.” Yin grinds his teeth and fights the urge to demand the giant leaves his house. “Oh, I almost forgot. I'm Gunnar Jensen.” The giant holds out his hand and Yin stares at him in horror.

“Yin Yang.” He mutters, taking the offered hand and trying not to think about how his own is engulfed.

“Really?” Gunnar’s face lights up in a smile and Yin pulls his hand free. “Like the balance thing?”

“Yinseng.”

“What?”

“My name is Yinseng Yang.” He barely resists the urge to roll his eyes, wondering how such a bright child could come from someone as idiotic as Gunnar.

“I like Yin.” Gunnar smiles and Yin swears under his breath. “I should probably get going, Jake gets out of school at three and he likes having someone to meet him at the bus stop.” There’s a brief pause and Gunnar looks shy. “Did you wanna come. To the bus stop, I mean. To get Jake. At the bus stop.”

“......I need to clean.” Yin says after a few very long awkward moments both men looking anywhere but each other. “But thank you for the offer.”

“Uh, yeah. No problem. Any time.” Gunnar coughs and scratches at the back of his neck. “So, see you around I guess.” Yin clenches his hands into fists and nods. “Cause we’re neighbours.”

“Goodbye Mr. Jensen.” Yin states firmly and Gunnar nods and heads for the door. As soon as Gunnar is gone, Yin picks up the bowl he keeps his keys in and hurls it against the wall with a satisfying smash. What the hell was that? Feng Shui? Seriously?

XxX XxX

Jake starts waiting for Yin in the mornings again. It’s like the previous week hasn't happened, though Yin is still finding glass shards every time he sweeps and has taken to wearing hard soled slippers in his house.

Jake is cheerful, but he keeps casting glances up at Yin like he knows something happened, but he’s just not sure what.

“Did he apologize?” Jake asks one day and Yin nearly trips over his own feet.

“What?”

“Did he apologize? Dad told me to stay away from you cause you were a bad man and then he told me you weren't a bad man and he shouldn't have jumped to conclusions.”

“He apologized.” Yin says and leaves it at that.

“Good. I told him you weren't like that. Studies show that paedophiles are more talkative than you, anyway.” Yin stares at Jake, then throws back his head and laughs. Jake grins openly at him.

XxX XxX


End file.
